Record claim for club rugby wing

Press, 6 July 1988, Page 46

Record claim for club rugby wing

A record is being claimed for Richard Kapa, a North Harbour rugby wing, who scored 11 tries in a recent Maori match in Thames. But although it was an astonishing feat, it was by no means unique in second class or club rugby.

According to the Guinness Book of Rugby Records, Michel Fabre scored 11 tries for the powerful Beziers side against Montchanin in 1979, and the French claim that as a world record for a club match. But even that is not the highest individual tally recorded in the book. The honour goes to a South African named Jannie van der Westhuizen, who

scored 14 tries for Carnarvon against Williston in a game in the North-West Cape in 1972.

He also kicked nine conversions, a penalty goal and a dropped goal to achieve yet another world record of 80 points. In a game in Tonga in 1979, Matini Tu’iono scored six tries and kicked 16 conversions, for a return of 56 points, in a game between Nukunuku and Talafo’ou. The team tallies in these games were Carnarvon 88, Beziers 100, and Nukunuku 112. But all these pale into insignificance beside Comet’s 1940 thrashing of Lindo in Copenhagen in 1973.' That works out at almost 2i/ 2 points a minute.